Bits and Bobs
by Once Beautiful and Brave
Summary: A collection of micro-fics previously posted on my Tumblr and Live Journal accounts and gathered together here for safe-keeping.


**Prompt: A scene where Sandor sings to Sansa. Play it sweet, play it serious, play it sad, play it amusing, just surprise me :)**

**Prompt: Sansa encounters Sandor singing to their baby in a surprisingly pleasing voice.**

The sound was faint at first and barely heard over the familiar late-afternoon racket issuing from the courtyard below - a strident melody Sansa had come to equate with life slowly returning to normal. She paused on the landing halfway up the stairs and closed her eyes, slumping against the warm granite wall and allowing herself a small respite. The babe had been teething of late and she could not remember the last time her evening's rest had gone uninterrupted by the cries of her son.

There came a brief silence from the bailey and now she could make out the lilting refrain of Florian and Jonquil coming from above her. It was not a voice she recognized. Though pleasant as it was - rich and deep and full - a frisson of fear clutched at her heart and caused her to push from the wall and race up the steps, fists lifting her skirts as she raced down the corridor to the nursery.

The cry of alarm poised on her lips died away as she flew through the open doorway. Squeezed into a chair barely wide enough to accommodate his shoulders, Sandor sat with their son held closely to his chest, softly singing to him. He looked over at her and frowned at what he must have seen on her face. Slowly, intent on not jostling the child, he lifted a finger to his lips and silently shushed her.

Smiling, Sansa crossed the room with great care, her slippers soundless upon the threadbare carpet, and came to a stop at the side of the chair. She bent and kissed the crown of Sandor's head, whispering as she peered down at their sleeping son, "You've been keeping secrets from me." He looked her a question as he reached out and enfolded her hand. "I haven't ever heard you sing before. Your voice is quite pleasing."

A faint smile lifted the corner of his scarred mouth. "Never had reason to do it before now," he murmured. "The want of a good night's sleep can make a man do things he never imagined." Sansa dipped low and kissed him again, and then lower still and dropped another on her son's brow. She straightened and caught Sandor's appraising gaze. "You look tired, wife." He nodded at the small settee below the window. "Rest for a while. Let me give you a song this time."

It was all the encouragement she needed. Toeing off her slippers, she curled up and pulled a warm woolen throw over her and closed her eyes. Sandor waited until she settled and then took up the song again. She fell asleep to the warm and raspy tone of his voice and the deeply contented sighs of their slumbering child.

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><p><strong>Prompt: Sansa bandages Sandor's arm.<strong>

"What were you thinking?"

Sandor looked up from the bite on his arm, ragged and weeping crimson tears, into a face that wore chastisement and amusement in equal measure. "I was thinking to teach the boy hand to hand combat! As he had asked - as you had requested of me," he added after a beat. This was as much Sansa's fault as the lad's, and he felt the need to remind her of that. "How was I to know the little bastard would sink his teeth into me? He's lucky he still has them; were he not your brother, I would've knocked them down his throat."

She clucked her tongue at him like an angry hen, setting aside the cloth she'd used to clean the bite and covering it with another square of clean linen. Her eyes darted between his face and the task at hand, wrapping a bandage around his forearm with slow precision. "Rickon was six years on Skagos, raised up by a Wildling and living amongst folk reputed to be little more than savages. Did you expect him to fight fairly?"

"I expected him to throw wild punches like any inexperienced ten year old boy is wont to do, little bird. What I didn't count on was him launching himself at me and gnawing away like some mad bloody dog."

"So then you two do have something in common after all, don't you?" She was peering up at him with innocent eyes, but the tilt of her mouth was where the devil lay.

"You're a right impudent wench, do you know that?"

She dipped her head, but not soon enough to hide the rise of her cheeks as a toothy grin lifted them. "I believe you may have said the same a time or two, husband."

He grunted and scowled, fighting to disguise the smile that threatened to settle itself on his face. Try as he might, he could never stay vexed at her for long. And though his arm stung and his pride had suffered a measure of the same (having heard the laughter as he'd shaken the boy off and stormed away from the training yard), he had a certain fondness for Rickon.

"I will speak to him when I am finished here," Sansa assured him. She risked meeting his eye again, now that she'd forced her smile away.

"See that you do." He caught her by the waist as she rose from the chair and made to turn away. Pulling her close, he tipped his head and looked up at her. "Do you know what's said about the tribes of Skagos?"

"What is that?"

"It's said they eat the flesh of their enemies."

"Then you should consider yourself lucky Rickon does not see you as such. Else your wound could have been much worse."

Chuckling, Sandor buried his face in the soft swell of Sansa's stomach and his words were muffled when they came. "He'd find me a poor meal. Tough and stringy, I'd wager. But you …" He came up from his chair and tugged her tight against him, nuzzling through loose auburn waves and suckling at the tender skin of her neck. "Forget the lad. It's me you must needs concern yourself with now."

Sansa sighed contentedly and tipped her head to give him freer access to the succulence of her skin. "And why is that, my lord?"

"Because I am a great warrior of Skagos and you, my sworn enemy. I plan to relish my victory - as is my right. Best say your prayers now, wench, for I mean to eat you up." Dipping just low enough, he wrapped an arm under her arse and heaved her up onto his shoulder, crossing the room to their bedchamber in long strides, Sansa squealing with delight the whole way.

* * *

><p><strong>Prompt: In an alternate universe (Post KL and QI) Arya returns to Winterfell where Sandor is assisting Sansa in its rebuilding. Arya's POV of the SanSan relationship.<strong>

There were still days when she wished she'd killed him when she had the chance, especially when she'd round a corner and find them huddled together in a narrow corridor, talking in intimate whispers, her sister tittering like some stupid little girl and dreamily gazing up at his ugly face like it belonged to a god or something.

But Arya had experienced enough death and brutality in the years before she'd made it back to Winterfell to appreciate tenderness when she saw it. And though she'd rather the Hound cut her in two before she'd admit it to anyone, she had never seen Sansa happier, nor witnessed the sort of gentleness Clegane afforded her. It was in those moments that she was almost glad she hadn't killed him.

Almost.

* * *

><p><strong>Prompt: Modern AU. Sandor picking out the perfect puppy 4 his gf sansa make it extra cute on the puppy pls<strong>

"That one there in the corner by himself," Sandor pointed at the floppy-eared black and tan shepherd puppy in the pet store window, "what's his story?"

"Runt of the litter," he was told, "the bigger ones are always picking on him; he keeps to himself mostly. Probably not what you're looking for if your girlfriend needs a dog for protection when you're not around."

"Yeah, and you're as stupid as you look, if that's what you think. The ones who get picked on, they find someone to love 'em and they grow up to be the fiercest of all. I'll take him."

* * *

><p><strong>Prompt: The first time Sansa realises Sandor is physically attractive to her.<strong>

She had seen many comely men over the years, and had her fair share of marriage offers from many of the same, but it was only after she'd declined the latest that she began to wonder why it was they all seemed lacking.

This one's face had been framed by tousled brown curls, but they were not the sleek and straight ebony locks she'd grown to prefer; his eyes - a limpid brown - had seemed lackluster in contrast with the slate gray so common of her fellow northerners; even his features, which many a maiden would describe as perfect, had seemed dull and uninteresting.

It was as she glanced at the varied faces converged in the Great Hall that her eyes found and then lingered upon the new captain of her household guard, and it was as if a veil had been lifted from them. Gods, she thought, he is everything I have wanted in a man … and more. She dipped her head as he began to turn towards her, but she feared she'd not been quick enough to hide the flush of her cheeks from Sandor Clegane's keen eye.

* * *

><p><strong>Prompt: Sansa tells Sandor she's pregnant with his child. Modern AU<strong>

"See, it's blue," she said, holding out the stick with one hand as she clutched the box the pregnancy test had come in the other. "Blue, you're pregnant, white, you're not. It's blue."

It was the box he reached for first, and she stood impatiently watching as he took the time to read every single word written on it before gingerly taking the stick from her hand, gazing down at it and then back up at her, his eyes glistening.

"It's blue," he announced, carefully setting box and stick on the table before sweeping her into his arms and spinning her until she was dizzy, his laughter booming like thunder in her ears.

* * *

><p><strong>Prompt: If you do modern AUs, Sansa &amp; Sandor at a concert?<strong>

They hadn't really shared musical tastes yet, but Sansa figured it was safe to assume Sandor went for the gothy head-banging kind, or maybe something emo, like the stuff her half-brother Jon would shut himself away in his room and listen to - complete, she was sure, with requisite soulful manly tears.

So she'd dressed appropriately in black leggings and an equally black tunic, laced up her combat boots, left her hair loose and flowing and went dark with her makeup. It wasn't until they'd arrived at the concert venue that Sansa understood why it was Sandor had looked at her so strangely when he'd picked her up, and now it was her turn to gap at him as she looked up at the marquee and read in huge block letters: ONE DIRECTION!

* * *

><p><strong>Prompt: Years after he winds up on the QI, a certain monk is in Braavos for whatever reason, and sees a very familiar face wandering a bazaar.<strong>

He does not find it at all odd, even after all these years, that the flash of red hair, caught from the corner of his eye, can still make his breath seize in his chest. What he does find queer, what spins him on his heel and sets him off to catch up with the woman, is the recognition of a profile last seen outlined against a sky filled with green fire. And what completes his journey of faith, in a way the Seven have yet to do, is the smile that greets him when he gently lays his hand on her shoulder and turns Sansa Stark to face him.

* * *

><p><strong>Prompt: A bird arrives in Winterfell, heralding Spring. Sandor shows up shortly after.<strong>

She had never seen anything like it, in all its colorful plumage, vivid even against the backdrop of the cerulean sky and its promise of the coming Spring.

"It's a bird from the Summer Isles, my lady," her handmaiden exclaimed as she carefully placed the cage on the table. "But whoever would send such a gift?"

Sansa was laughing as she hurried down the staircase, knowing Sandor had finally found his way back home.

* * *

><p><strong>Prompt: The first time Sandor told Sansa he loves her, and the first time Sansa tells Sandor she loves him. <strong>

Audacity

He should not have been able to hear her. Not over the clanking of armor and the men shouting crude japes at each other in encouragement, their mounts snorting impatiently, hooves kicking up dust in the bright morning air. But hear her he did.

Seated high above her on a chestnut courser, Sandor jerked the reins back and twisted in his saddle, staring down at her as his brow knitted in a deep crease. "What did you say?"

Sansa opened her mouth to respond and found she couldn't, so she quickly closed it. But then, as with the last words she'd spoken, she found more of them escaping her mouth with no thought on her part. "I beg pardon?"

"Bugger your pardons, girl, you heard me." He leaned down and slowly added, as if she might have been struck dumb, "What did you just say?"

And now she was certain she had lost her wits, and looked all around her as if the solution to her sudden dilemma might be found hanging in the air. But there was no help to be found there.

She hadn't meant for it to happen this way. She'd so wanted to confess it last night, when they'd found themselves with a rare private moment and had used it to say their awkward farewells. But she had lost her courage in the end and had slept badly for it. She'd known it might be the last chance she had to tell him, and she'd let it slip away.

For three years he had served as her sworn shield, presenting himself before her in humble brown robes not long after word of Petyr Baelish's death had reached Quiet Isle. And for three years Sandor had been her almost constant companion, her adviser, and, finally, her friend. She was only a little surprised when she had discovered, only some few months past, that she had also fallen in love with him. And now he was leading an army out of the Vale and to the North, determined to finally recapture her home from the traitorous Boltons. She knew with terrible certainty that he would die if it took that to grant her this most precious gift. And suddenly she was no longer afraid.

Squaring her shoulders, she stood straight and faced him, her cheeks warm, her heart drumming in her ears. She pulled in a breath and blurted, "What I said, Sandor, is that I love you."

There was a moment, then, when time stopped and all the ruckus surrounding them faded away, going muted and foggy. His eyes met hers and held them and her heart pounded ever louder and harder, as though it might burst from her chest. And then before she knew it, he'd slipped from his horse and was standing before her. His hands came up and the smooth leather of his gauntlets caressed her cheeks as he lifted her face to his. Unmindful of the men around them, he placed a single soft kiss upon her lips. His eyes twinkled brightly as he pulled away and released her.

"I thought so," he said, and without another word mounted his horse and looked back at her. He gave a small nod of his head. "My lady."

She wet her lips, unconsciously seeking the taste of him there, and whispered, "My lord," as she watched him ride away.

* * *

><p><strong>Prompt: One Sentence Meme: Smut<strong>

Her body is the canvas, his mouth the brush, and it is in this manner that he paints her skin and marvels as his efforts bring forth the varied shades of her desire: the moist red of her lips, the turgid pink of her nipples, the lush ruby folds that open beneath his tongue; she is his masterpiece.


End file.
